Earlier this year, a Korean source had pointed out an easy method to enable a fourth core on the Phenom II X3. This was made possible by the way AMD has been designing its triple-core and dual-core processors based on the K10 "Stars" architecture: by disabling one or two cores on the quad-core die. "Sloppy" BIOS coding lead to the Phenom II X3 anomaly. It looks like a somewhat similar mod enables not one, but two cores on the sub-$100 Athlon X2 7750 Black Edition. A Korean technology website GiggleHD.com has reported a successful unlock of two cores.

The method is similar to that of the Phenom II X3 unlock: using flaws in BIOS code to enable cores, by enabling the "Advanced Clock Calibration" feature in the BIOS setup. The OS, Windows XP SP3, was able to see the processor as a "AMD Phenom(tm) FX-7750", while CPU-Z reads the name string correctly and lists the core count as 4. The motherboard in use is an ASRock A790GX/128M.

That explains the high power consumption of the chip. It's a native quad. Seems like AMD designed only two CPUs: Phenom and Phenom II, and they disable parts of them to get a complete market coverage.
I would rather like to see more efficient native dual- and tricores in the future.

Seriously, think about it: AMD use all native-quads for their different lineups, and one day, slips a bios or some patch that unlocks dormant cores... if its true, AMD are w1zzards lol.
This gives their processors so much value, alot of heads (and wallets) will turn.

I enjoyed that about the world supremacy, sounds cool ) The only cath is that selling quad-cores for the price of dual-cores amid tough economical climate isn't exaclty what AMD needs right now. I would enjoy a crippled Phenom sold as a single-core Sempron, however. Now THAT would be a bargain ))

^ Dont forget this isn't 100% sure and there is no guarantee whatsoever.
About what npp said: its all about volume. sell thousands of cheap parts, instead of hundreds of more expensive ones. if the average joe see the potential in buying a dual-core which is dirt-cheap, and unlocking it to tri or quad, he will sure be happy and buy loads of these chips. this has a good profit potential for AMD.

That explains the high power consumption of the chip. It's a native quad. Seems like AMD designed only two CPUs: Phenom and Phenom II, and they disable parts of them to get a complete market coverage.
I would rather like to see more efficient native dual- and tricores in the future.

It's been known from the get go the 7750 was pretty much half a 9950. I had a 9850 and it clocked for crap, I managed to squeeze 3.2ghz bench stable out of it on the stock cooler, and 3.1ghz 24/7 clocks, but that was hard as hell to do.

Fast forward to a few weeks ago when I got my gf a 7750, I bumped the voltage up a few ticks, uped the multi to 3.3ghz and bam, no one issue. Thats on a stock cooler. I lined some 120mm's up to blow on the HS and now it runs at 39c under load, gonna go for 3.4ghz or more 24/7 clocks, that would have been very difficult to pull off in the 9850 or 9950. So they strategy in my mind is working fantastically!

I already did a bit of testing, it's been set on Auto since I got it, that didn't do it. And setting all cores to 0% or -2% didn't unlock mine. But I got bored testing and bumped it up to 3.4ghz and 1.312v and stressing the crap out of it now, just passed wPrime 1024, such a nice little proc!

I already did a bit of testing, it's been set on Auto since I got it, that didn't do it. And setting all cores to 0% or -2% didn't unlock mine. But I got bored testing and bumped it up to 3.4ghz and 1.312v and stressing the crap out of it now, just passed wPrime 1024, such a nice little proc!

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What mobo if I may ask, I need to change mine anyways since I can't get past 3 ghz

I already did a bit of testing, it's been set on Auto since I got it, that didn't do it. And setting all cores to 0% or -2% didn't unlock mine. But I got bored testing and bumped it up to 3.4ghz and 1.312v and stressing the crap out of it now, just passed wPrime 1024, such a nice little proc!

Click to expand...

What you might need to do is reflash your BIOS with the very first Phenom II supporting version. That seems to be the one with the poor coding that allows the unlocking of CPUs.

I know I can unlock my 720BE on the BIOS version before this one, which was the first to support PII, and now I can't on the newer one (the older version was so buggy it made overclocking a chore).